


in a circus brawl

by ssuppositiouss



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Firebender Keith (Voltron), Gen, Klance Secret Santa 2016, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Pining Keith (Voltron), Waterbender Lance (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-09-14 04:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9160615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssuppositiouss/pseuds/ssuppositiouss
Summary: Keith joins the Cirque d'Altea to escape a life he was forced into when he was a child. At the circus, he learns more about his elemental fire magic, about friendship and trust, about falling into a strangely magical love. But he's still running away, and his past is bound to catch up, especially with all this quintessence business. . .





	1. chapter one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [robotjellyfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotjellyfish/gifts).



> happy new year!! sorry for the late klance secret santa gift @poisonedfortunecookie/robotjellyfish, but I hope you like it!! (we were each other's secret santas!)
> 
> I wanted to write a klance soulmate!au and a circus!au, and this is the result, a strange conglomeration of the two that will hopefully make sense when I post the next chapters ahaha. I can't /not/ write angst, unfortunately :')
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Keith tries not to make it obvious he’s staring, but the cadence of Lance’s movements draws him in every time. He can’t help his curiosity, his awe. The water whirls around Lance, freezing in the shapes of stars, the ice catching on the light in the tent so he glows like the night sky. There is a slight chill in the air, and Keith has goosebumps watching.

Lance glows and glows, the center of the show, the star.

“Like what you see?” Lance calls, and though his tone is light, the look on his face shows that he isn’t happy to have his practice interrupted.

“I. Err.” Keith stumbles through his words, face flushing. The circus tent feels very warm. He doesn’t know if he’s creating the warmth with his fire or if it’s Lance. Lance raises an eyebrow, but his face is flushed as well. “We should, uhh. Practice. Together.” Lance stares at him, and Keith has no idea what the look means. He doesn’t like how stupid he sounds, though, a bumbling mess of a boy too entranced by another elemental’s skill, and he tacks on (with the haughty tone of the boy his caretaker wanted him to be), “After you’re done playing, of course.”

Lance glares, blasting an ice crystal at Keith, who frowns and melts it before it even comes near his face. The water splashes on the floor at his feet.

That isn’t what he’d wanted to say.

“Of _course_.”

* * *

Keith attends the Cirque d’Altea at his caretaker’s instruction. He doesn’t quite understand what he is expected to do here, but for once he is free of the influence that clouds his mind. He can still feel the grips of control wrapping around his hands, his arms, his _mind_ , forcing him to _burn_.

It chills him, worries him, makes him hope for the safety of people he doesn’t know. He doesn’t ever want to lose control.

He shoves the thought aside.

He wasn’t told when to come back, so, technically, he can stay as long as he wants. The thought makes Keith smile just a bit. (Could he never leave the circus? Is that a possibility?) The weather is beautiful, a clear and warm day, and Keith thinks he can soak in the wonders of the circus atmosphere all day.

And the circus is amazing.

He doesn’t expect it to be. He thinks it’ll be just a circus, a place cheap magic tricks and false entertainment, illusions to trick people into spending money. Nothing compared to the real magic he has experienced in his own life. But Altea isn’t like that.

Keith has never been around other elementals, never been around anyone other than his caretaker and his awful friends—

_Keith stares at the burns on his arms and hands, eyes watering as he moves his body into the correct stance. He can feel the energy pulsing in the air as it is pulled toward Sendak’s left arm. Sendak aims a punch at Keith’s face, and he can almost see the power behind the hit as it moves toward him. It moves in slow motion, and Keith lets out a breath, summons the fire from within him, and shoots_

—but the performers here seem nothing like them.

The tents stand tall, pastel pink and creamy white stripes fluttering with the breeze. Each tent has something different, Keith learns, and he feels like a child again, small and spellbound by the sights around him. He’s seeing the world in a different light. He is surrounded by people, excited chatter in the air. He can smell the different foods, can almost taste them on his tongue, but he doesn’t have the funds to buy anything so he watches as others do.

He is only here to observe, but observing isn’t enough.

The more time Keith spends looking around, the more he can sense the raw energy in the air, the sign of other elementals nearby. He wonders if the magic is what keeps the circus going, what attracts so many people compared to other petty performances at other circuses.

The first tent, which appears small on the outside, leads to a large maze of mirrors. An element of magic must have enchanted them, but he can’t help being pulled into the mystery. The tent shouldn’t hold so many mirrors, shouldn’t appear so small but house so much. Each mirror’s reflection shows something different, pulling him into his past, into different worlds, different appearances. He doesn’t feel like Keith anymore, when he looks into these mirrors.

The worlds reflected in the mirrors are like different universes. He sees himself in school, in the dark night sky, as a knight, as a lovestruck boy.

(In all of the mirrors he is still Keith, but he isn’t. He doesn’t wield fire, isn’t an elemental, doesn’t have the part of him that defines him as _Keith_.)

He doesn’t want to leave the tent, but, at last, he does.

The next tent he attends is as small on the inside as it is on the outside. Inside is dark, lit only by several dark purple candles. Energy circles the air, electric power making Keith freeze in place. And there is a woman here, face hidden and body hunched over. Her aura is oddly familiar, and it is discomfiting. She isn’t old, but she isn’t young either. Keith cannot see her eyes, but she makes him shiver with her smile.

“Would you like your fortune told?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. He cannot see her eyes, only the tight, false smile tugging at her lips. Her voice is raspy, and the parts of her cheeks that Keith can see make it appear that she has been crying, though it is clear that she hasn’t been.

Keith shakes his head slowly, backing out of the tent, mumbling weak apologies for disturbing her. He doesn’t feel comfortable in her presence, and he hopes not to see her again. The woman laughs.

(Her laugh is almost horrifying, shattering his temporary illusion that he is somewhere safe in this circus.)

Several tents catch Keith’s eye, and he jogs to them, ready to lose himself once more.

There is one that let the attendees create their own skies, dipping hands in glitter and paint, throwing ideas into the air for the colors to catch. The air holds these designs for as long as he is in the tent, and Keith glances back into the tent as he is leaving and sees his sky fade.

He plans to go back there and stare at his own sky, lose himself in his own thoughts, in the creation of a world different from this one.

Another tent showcases the acrobats and contortionists. Their outfits are beautiful, intricately designed so that every movement looks even more magical than the last, so they are glowing, a shining centerpiece of the circus. There is no element of magic here, but the level of skill leaves Keith wishing he were stronger.

(“You’re progressing, but not fast enough.” Fast enough for what? “Again.”)

They perform without nets, with danger waiting for them at the bottom of the tent, to make everything more dramatic. Music plays in the background, though there are no instruments, and every movement where one of the acrobats dips lower and lower to the spiky ornaments decorating the tent floor makes Keith’s heart race.

Magic is everywhere in the circus, he notes, but a lot of the circus itself is not magic. The elements can only do so much magic, and this circus is the very definition of magic.

There is a tent of circus foods, of flavors so unique he can’t name them.

A tent of lights, so he can still see the designs when he closes his eyes.

A tent of animals, uniquely crafted statues of metals and earths, of animals he could never even imagine.

A tent of words, written on the floor, the tent walls, the air at the top of the tent. A place for thoughts to easily get lost.

Keith gets lost in the magic, wandering and wandering. Outside of this circus, being an elemental is something secret, something you hide so you are not hurt by those who do not understand.

Keith doesn’t know what his neighbors think of them, the boy and his caretaker, quiet but dangerous, disappearing as quickly as they arrive, no warnings, no chance to understand. Magic is not on their minds, but even without knowing of it, magic fills them.

Here, magic is part of the atmosphere, elements swirling round, integrated into everything. It is lovely.

The other attendees are entranced (as is Keith, despite knowing of magic already), and Keith allows himself to get lost in the Cirque d’Altea, just for a while.

* * *

Fire is so integrated into his core that he almost doesn’t want to enter the tent with the water symbols on the sign, but he has spent the entirety of his day at the circus now, and he will have to leave soon. The tents have all been magical, but in ways Keith cannot understand. This tent promises a water elemental, someone who wields magic similar to Keith’s.

How did this person learn? Could Keith learn from that person instead? Could he avoid ever returning to his caretaker?

(Never.)

He enters the tent.

People file into the tent with him, sitting in the stands, packed close together, excitement blending together. He can feel their auras, their anticipation. It is dim in the tent, the only lighting coming from floating lanterns, their candle flames flickering as an announcement.

The chatter all dies at the same time, as though everyone knows when the performance is about to start.

“Ladies! Gentlemen! Prepare yourselves for an enchanter like no other!” Keith is on the edge of his seat, the desire to use his own element burning inside him. With a loud blast of water, it begins.

And Keith cannot tear his eyes away from the performer.

He moves so gracefully, water swirling into different shapes, cascading down and lighting the tent with ice crystals. Keith is lost in the man’s dance as the water glows, and the crowd expresses their awe as the water creates scene after scene of different fairy tales, different stories to each viewer but to all still the most stunning thing they have ever seen.

The water tells Keith a story of a child forced to follow a path set by fate. The performer creates people out of ice, creates a magical world even more entrancing than the universes created by the maze of mirrors.

Water shoots up from the circus floor, a shower of sparkling ice.

When Keith looks away from the water and pays attention to the man at the center of it all, he has to pause and catch his breath.

He is beautiful.

His skin is tanned, his costume hugging his body well. Different shades of blue and silver line his torso and meet at his hip, and his sleeves are long and reach his slender fingers. When he moves, his outfit glitters, the colors blurring together until the performer is nothing but a magical mystery.

Everyone in the audience is captivated by the show, but instead Keith is mesmerized by the performer himself.

The performer must feel Keith’s stare, though, as his gaze shifts to meet Keith’s. His eyes are very, very blue. Clearer than the water itself. Keith feels the air around him go cold.

The enchanter’s steps falter when their eyes meet and their stares hold.

For a moment, there is silence. The water stops moving. Then ice crystals begin to rain on the crowd.

Keith feels the blades of ice cut his cheeks, and the sting breaks him from his trance.

Amidst the beginnings of shouts, Keith unthinkingly stands and waves a hand above him (sends the fire from his core, lets it warm the air around him _but not burn_ , just like they practiced, just like they practiced), and a brush of fire from his hand shifts the ice so tiny flecks of snow begin to fall instead.

The crowd _ooh_ s and _aah_ s as though the ice and fire colliding has been planned, and Keith sighs in relief. His heart is racing.

When Keith turns to look at the performer again, the man is pointedly looking away, the lightness of his previous expression discolored by a grimace.

The rest of the show continues without incident. Keith is still entranced by the performer, as is the crowd, awed by the power he has over the water, the way his water shifts their worlds.

(He is the first elemental Keith has seen wield an element so peacefully.)

The performance ends with a shower of ice crystals again, though these are in the man’s control, no pain and no screaming. The crowd leaves hungry for more, and Keith stays in the tent for a few moments longer, hoping to catch another glimpse of the water elemental.

Eventually, though, after too many minutes pass and the tent is nearly empty, he exits, unwilling to admit his disappointment.

“You’re a fire elemental!” a woman exclaims as Keith leaves the tent. She places a hand on his shoulder.

Keith freezes in place, thoughts running wild in his head. How is he supposed to react? Is she angry at him? He thought he’d been careful, so no one could trace the fire back to him. What will his caretaker say?

He should burn her and run.

She brushes her hair behind her ear, and Keith for a moment is struck by how pretty she is. Her hair is silver, glowing bright like the ice creations the performer in the tent had crafted.

“I, err.” Keith can’t remember what he’s meant to say in situations as these; he’s never had to deal with someone knowing what it meant to be an elemental before, never been away from the small apartments they’ve lived in as he’d grown up. The people he’s interacted with in the past have all been familiar with magic. He doesn’t want to associate with the fire he’d created, but she’d seen him. What if others had, too? “Yes?”

She extends a hand, and Keith stares at it for long enough to recall that he is meant to shake it. Thankfully, the woman appears not to notice. When their hands touch, Keith feels the air shifting around him, a gentle caress to calm him. He surmises she is an elemental, but he cannot be sure. “I’m Allura. I’m the Altea curator.”

Her aura is enough that he releases the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. It isn’t enough to calm his racing feelings, but then, he supposes nothing could calm that.

“Keith,” he mumbles, hoping she doesn’t understand him. He wonders if he is supposed to give a false name, in situations as these.

“Hello, Keith!” She is very enthusiastic, and her energy raises Keith’s spirit slightly. Being around her is soothing. “You’re very skilled, you know. You would make an excellent addition to our circus.”

Keith doesn’t know what to say, stumbling through words in his head (let me join, let me leave) until something interrupts.

“Ugh!” The outcry is loud enough that Keith and Allura startle. Keith glances at the tent exit, trying to find the source of the voice. “Can you _believe_ that fire guy? Trying to upstage me at my first—”

“Hello!” the boy near the water performer declares when he sees Keith, directing a nervous smile in his direction.

At the same time, the water performer points at him, his glare so strong Keith shivers. Maybe he made the temperature drop with his magic. “You!”

“Lance,” Allura starts warily, running her fingers through her hair.

 _Lance_.

_Lance the Enchanter._

Keith wants to say something to the performer, but he isn’t very good at words, doesn’t have a lot of experience talking to other people. He doesn’t know what he wants to say, really.

“Who do you think you are?” Lance demands, leaning into Keith’s face. His eyes are such a bright blue, and there is a fire in them. The blatant dislike in Lance’s tone is surprising, to say the least, and Keith takes a step back, scowling despite the heat in his face.

“Hello to you, too.”

Lance’s attitude starts to make Keith’s temper rise. “Who stares at the _enchanter_ when there’s water magic happening, creepy eyes?”

“Maybe I just knew you would mess up!” Keith snaps, unable to keep his temper in check. He feels heat burning in him. He feels fire in his palms. (“Good, good, let the strength of your emotions create destruction.”) He wants to scream. All his life he’s been told to let his anger out in this way.

“I didn’t ‘mess up.’ Your staring is uncomfortable.”

“Uhh, guys. . .”

Keith feels his cheeks flush further, and it makes him angry. “I would’ve thought you’d like all the attention, water boy.”

“And what is _that_ supposed to mean?” Lance’s voice cracks.

“It mea—”

“Guys!” Lance’s companion points at the sky above them, at the sudden darkness, the promise of a downpour. Strange. “Hate to break up the fight. . . Well, actually, I don’t hate that. You guys are making me kind of nervous with all your yelling. But we should head into a tent or something!”

Keith feels appropriately self-conscious by his and Lance’s exchange, but he makes no move to apologize. Lance should be the one to apologize first. Keith saved _him_.

With the incoming rain, though, it is time to leave the circus.

The tents, despite the magic and the elementals running them, will probably be stuffy and damp. He watches the others flurry into the tent, heart twisting when he hears Lance laugh at something his friend says, then turns away.

He isn’t sure what his caretaker’s instructions are, has no idea where he plans on going, but he walks.

* * *

Keith sighs and stares out the window, watching as everyone outside interacts with each other, happy and cheerful, innocent and untainted.

The men are clad in their top hats and their suits, the browns and blacks of their clothes blending in with the bleak atmosphere. The women are in their gowns, a little more color than the men, a splash of something different in the city. Keith’s own outfit is something his caretaker has pulled from an unknown somewhere (most likely stolen from someone). It is much too large, the trousers hanging just below the knee, the shirtsleeves covering his palms. He doesn’t need a jacket because he doesn’t leave their little apartment.

He sits and awaits caretaker’s return. His only true instructions are to stay.

This isn’t the first time he’s being left alone (part of him wonders if it’s normal, to leave an eight-year-old boy alone like this), but after the last time he tried to run, he’s a little scared of leaving.

He can practice burning the items left behind on the table—the next test is to burn them and destroy them, but not to the point of being irreparable. Keith isn’t sure how he can use fire to restore something he has destroyed, but he knows that he needs to teach himself the way before he’s forced to test the theories on his own body again.

He remembers burning down the orphanage, destroying their previous apartment before coming here. He fights back the nausea, goes back to staring out the window.

When he’s older, old enough that he can take on odd jobs in the city, he’ll leave his caretaker and live without this loathing.

(He doesn’t know how he can escape.)

* * *

Keith is damp from the rain, but it isn’t raining outside of the Cirque d’Altea, oddly enough. It hadn’t even been raining until he and Lance had started arguing. Maybe it’s a part of the weird magic of Altea.

He wanders for a while, lost in his thoughts.

He’d felt different there. He can’t quite place it, but he knows that he would be protected, if he stays. They have magic in there, magic stronger than his own, magic (probably, hopefully) stronger than his caretaker’s.

Allura carries a certain aura, one that makes him feel safe. Lance. . . is annoying. But he has a powerful aura, and is one of the first people who could make him so angry, so passionate about something, but not to the point of losing control. He’s curious.

Keith doesn’t head back home, doesn’t want to. The circus has made him feel things he hasn’t felt in a long time, emotions other than anger or fear. As he wanders and the night comes as the day fades, he realizes that, for the first time, no one has come for him.

He’s tried to escape his caretaker so many times; his childhood is colored with memories of him trying to leave, of coming so close to freedom but being pulled back in the most painful ways possible. But here he is, released from his apartment to visit these performers, and he isn’t being forced back.

Did they expect this? Is he supposed to go back to the circus? Is that what his caretaker wants?

Or is this something magical, something out of his caretaker’s control?

He wonders if the magical presences of everyone at Altea are shielding his own aura, if they can continue to do it.

They have more magic than his caretaker, he tells himself, and they can help him. He stands there, for a moment, lost in thought.

And then he’s running.

He’s breathless, his heart racing, his face flushed, his excitement palpable. He knows which tent to enter, somehow, his body directing him instinctively, sensing the aura from earlier.

“I’d. . .”

Allura smiles at him, kindly, no sense of surprise in her expression. There is another man with her, with a friendly smile but eyes cold from experience.

“I’d like to join after all.”

“I’m glad!” Allura waves her hands, and the energy around them is warm. He feels so much lighter just being here. “We don’t have any formal contract, but this is a commitment. Altea is a traveling circus, and we rarely return to the towns we’ve already been.”

Keith is accustomed to leaving, and he nods. “That’s perfect, actually.”

The man beside her starts talking about one of the towns he would like to revisit, and Keith finds himself at ease just listening.

Several stories later, Coran sends Keith on his way. “Shiro’ll show you around, don’t you worry!”

“Shiro?”

Shiro ends up being the kind of person that Keith immediately feels comfortable with, and it’s sort of surprising (he hasn’t felt comfortable with anyone until the circus, and suddenly he is comfortable with _everyone_.)

The comfort that Shiro brings ends up inducing a bout of insecurity.

Keith doesn’t know how to fit in. Part of him wonders why he hasn’t been hurt yet, for finally leaving his caretaker’s home, for freeing himself of that torture. The other part of him is just happy to be away from that, happy to be surrounded by such warm, protective people.

He’d been told to go to the circus, yes, but he finds it strange that he hasn’t been forced back (yet). He finds it strange that he was told to go to the circus at all.

He gets along with this man right away, though his eyes still seem distant. Shiro is like the brother he’d always wanted, showing him around the circus, answering his questions, giving him guidance (protecting him).

“We pack up the tents and change locations every few days,” Shiro explains. “Allura just _knows_ where we’re supposed to go next, and we use magic to get there quickly.”

Keith looks around. All of the rain from earlier is gone. He wonders about Allura’s magic, but he figures he will see it in action soon enough. “When will we leave here?”

“Maybe the day after tomorrow?”

“How do you move everything so quickly?” Keith doesn’t know much about travel—when he and his caretaker leave their apartments, there isn’t much to bring, and the destination is always easy to reach.

Altea has a reputation of appearing and disappearing as quickly as it comes. He suspects that his caretaker has been tracking it for some time. Apparently it is difficult to obtain tickets for the circus, as the attendees have certain criteria to meet. Keith had been able to gain entry almost immediately.

“It isn’t that bad. I think the main concern is keeping the elemental magic secret from everyone, since the majority of people here don’t actually have magic.”

Shiro leads Keith to a tent in the back of the circus. They have to follow a dirt path to it, and it looks relatively worn in, despite the very few days the circus has been in town. The tent is a pale blue and white, and it is wide but not very tall. It is inconspicuous, despite being at the end of the path, and Keith wonders if he would’ve even noticed, had Shiro not led him to it.

Wandering around the circus can be disorienting sometimes, Keith thinks. He’ll think he’s on the path to a specific tent, but the area would shift, and he’d be somewhere else entirely. It’s part of the magic, supposedly, but as someone living in the tents instead of just visiting them, it’s more than a little confusing.

“This is where you’ll stay. Allura and Coran stay in a different tent, and there’s a bigger tent behind this one for those of us without elemental magic.”

This surprises Keith. “You mean you—”

Shiro laughs and places a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “You’ll be rooming with Hunk, Pidge, and Lance.” Keith must make a face, as Shiro laughs again, in understanding. “He’ll warm up to you.”

Keith perks up a little, heart beating the slightest bit faster. “Was he like this with you, too?”

“Ahh, no. I think he’s just self-conscious.” Shiro glances at the tent and sighs. “It was his first time performing in front of everyone, and he didn’t expect to hurt anyone.”

“He didn’t!” Keith snaps to attention. “If I hadn’t been there—”

Shiro interrupts kindly, toning down Keith’s flare of emotion. “He probably didn’t want you, or anyone, to interfere. It makes you feel like you did something wrong, if someone comes claiming to save you. For his first performance, he didn’t plan on having someone. . . with his opposing element show up.”

“Oh.”

Keith swallows in discomfort, staring at the tent entrance as though he expects Lance to just jump out and try to fight him. He feels a little nauseous now. His first interaction with someone other than his caretaker (or his caretaker’s awful friends) and he messed up pretty badly. He wonders how he can fix this, what he can do if Lance really doesn’t like him.

“You know, Keith,” Shiro starts, and Keith tears his eyes away from the tent. “I know we haven’t known each other for a long time, but if there’s anything you want to talk about. . .”

“I’m fine, Shiro.”

Does Shiro know something? He doesn’t want to seem like he cares too much, already. What if Altea finds out about him and decides they don’t want him here anymore? He doesn’t think he can handle that. They maintain eye contact for a passing moment.

“I think we might have more in common than you think,” Shiro says after a short silence.

Keith thinks of his childhood in the orphanage, his life with his caretaker, his attempts at leaving. He hopes Shiro hasn’t dealt with anything similar, but, as he looks at the scar on Shiro’s nose, the weariness in his eyes, he knows there’s a lot he doesn’t know.

But he wants to learn.

* * *

He first runs away in the months after his adoption, waiting until his caretaker is long gone from the apartment to escape the complex and try to leave the city. He is lost in the area, surrounded by people so tall and buildings so large. Everything is dirty and gray, smog surrounding him and making it difficult to breathe as he runs. No one gives him a second glance, and he wonders if he could’ve just lived like this, instead of suffering in the orphanage, instead of suffering through this sham of an adoption.

He is confused, but he is free.

Keith thinks he made it out of the city and at least into the next one. He tells himself this, to provide himself comfort, that he had tried, that he had _almost_ made it.

(In reality, it hadn’t even been a half hour.)

He doesn’t know where he’s going or what he plans on doing. He figures he can steal food from somewhere, figures someone will hire him to clean. Even if he can’t take care of himself, it’s better than having to live another minute in that little apartment, forced to blast fire at his caretaker to try and prevent being cut up by a blade or tortured mentally.

He only stops for a minute. It hasn’t been too long since he’d run away, but he needs a break, since he hasn’t eaten.

A woman takes his arm as he stops for his breath, and her touch burns. He screams and tries to yank his arm away, but her grasp is strong, images of fire and burning and death running through his mind. It is worse than what his caretaker does to him, what he sees and hears and feels. It feels like his flesh is being torn away, like his mind is being stripped bare. He can’t breathe.

At some point, he passes out.

He regains consciousness in the apartment, his caretaker displeased as he watches Keith stare at the scar on his arm. It is pale and shaped like the woman’s handprint.

Every time he tries to run afterward, he is found in less and less time. The scars littering his arms begin to increase, as does the pain that comes with each escape attempt.

When he hits adolescence, the mind control squeezes his mind so strongly that as he is leaving the building, no matter how much he fights, he is forced to direct his own fire at his own throat. He can feel his own strength tearing at his skin, aiming for his own being. Through tears and blood, he is dragged back to the apartment, barely conscious and barely fighting.

The door is never locked, but Keith’s chances, his attempts, at escape fade to nothing.

Keith is fourteen when his attempts to run away fizzle out.

* * *

Allura does an odd magic Keith doesn’t really understand, warping the air around them, and then suddenly they are somewhere else entirely. It feels as though they have walked for ages, and the sun’s position in the sky says that some amount of time has passed, but not enough that they have traveled such a distance. Magic is definitely at work, and Allura’s element, whatever it is, teleports them to another city.

This is how the Cirque d’Altea travels. This is how the magic begins.

When they leave the town (and Keith leaves his caretaker behind), Keith never feels safer, more alive.

* * *

Keith spends the next day watching the other performances, avoiding Lance (though admittedly not Lance’s performances, which he has a hard time believing are done by the same person), and helping the elementals Hunk and Pidge keep everything running smoothly.

Pidge manipulates the earth and different metals, and Keith’s fire helps her weld objects together, reconfiguring shapes and statues to make the different exhibits more magical, more out of their realm of practicality.

Pidge is someone he likes spending time with, even though neither of them is very talkative. When she does talk, she’s blunt and biting, knowing exactly what she wants to say and how she wants to say it.

She’s comfortable with herself, in a way Keith hopes to one day be. She wears the same fashions as Keith did when he was younger (hers fit only marginally better), doesn’t style her hair, doesn’t try to be anyone that she isn’t. She’s a refreshing dose of realism.

Keith, on the other hand, dresses in the clothes stolen by his caretaker, clothes much too large for him, too old-fashioned. His hair is a mess, the ends singed by his own carelessness. He’s a mess, but she says he’s fine. And that is that.

“If we pull the metal thin enough, we can make these look like they’re floating on their own.” Pidge manipulates the metal in her hands into the thinnest of wires. Keith can’t even see the wire, and he knows he’s supposed to be looking for it. “It’s dark enough in the tents that no one can tell the difference.”

Keith heats the end of the metal so it can be attached to the beams at the top of the tent.

Pidge nods in approval. She seems to like working in silence, which Keith appreciates, since he doesn’t know what to say or how to say anything.

Spending time with everyone is teaching him things he’d missed, growing up how he had.

Despite knowing some of the secrets of the circus, it doesn’t stop being magical to him. When he has the time, he goes to watch some of the performances, letting himself get lost in the creativity and the magic. The tents are different each day, in different places, with different shows and different elements at work.

There is a tent of smells, of tastes (Hunk is proud to be the reason this tent exists), of sounds. The circus is designed for an attendee to get lost, and Keith gets lost every chance he can. He can’t find the tent with the fortuneteller anymore, and he’s secretly thankful.

(He hides in the back of the crowd when it comes to Lance’s performances, but he makes it a point not to miss a single one. Pidge laughs at him.)

He helps Pidge until dinnertime, then tries to think of the best way to sneak away. She notices.

It’s just. . . everyone at the circus eats dinner together. Hunk insists they do this because they can all have his cooking while it’s fresh, and Allura likes the idea because it gives them a chance to talk to each other. Throughout the day, when everyone is performing, it can be difficult to spend time together.

Keith has evaded dinner with everyone out of awkwardness. He hasn’t eaten with anyone since his time at the orphanage, and he’s forgotten how to make pleasant conversation at all. It’s better, he figures, for everyone to enjoy their time with each other without him making things awkward for them.

He feels guilty for skipping meals with everyone, especially with how kind Hunk is. He can’t remember the last time he’d eaten food freshly cooked, food that was warm for a reason other than Keith heating it with his own hands.

Pidge drags him to dinner, and Keith tries to escape when she goes for food.

“Where are you going?” Shiro’s voice makes Keith nearly trip on his own feet.

He mumbles something intelligible, instead of answering the question. He has a plate of food in his hands, and he wants to hide in his tent and eat in privacy.

“I know it’s easier to run away,” Shiro looks sympathetic, “but we’d really like to have dinner with you.”

The idea of disappointing Shiro is overwhelming, for some reason, and Keith sulks but ends up following him back to the outside eating area. The weather is cool and the sky is clear, a perfect day for eating outside.

Shiro sits at a table with Hunk and Pidge, and Keith nods at them before sliding into the seat next to Shiro.

He’s barely settled in for a minute before someone grumbles, “That’s my seat.”

“Lance.” Shiro sighs.

Keith turns to look at Lance, slightly peeved he has to spend his dinner with him after he’d successfully avoided Lance’s company for two days (watching him perform doesn’t count). He’s about to say something snarky, but Lance plops into the seat across from him instead, shooting ice daggers with his eyes.

Keith wonders if he should be apologizing, how he should say what he should say. He doesn’t want to be mad at Lance (he doesn’t think he really is mad), and he doesn’t want Lance to be mad at him.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. You can sit next to Shiro!” Lance digs his fork into his dinner with more force than expected, and something flies off the plate. It makes a disgusting squishing noise that makes Keith cringe.

Hunk and Pidge exchange a look. Keith avoids group dinner for the next four days.

* * *

Shiro’s favorite tent is one that makes Keith a little uncomfortable. It is dark and quiet, a cool enough temperature that when he enters the tent he feels weightless. Arriving in the tent from the bright environment outside hurts Keith’s eyes, but he thinks he understands why Shiro finds comfort in it.

In a place where your senses are suddenly deprived, it is easy to get lost.

He wonders why Shiro wants to get lost, wonders how he can help.

Sometimes, when being in Altea seems too stressful, Shiro will disappear for a while, and Keith knows to leave him alone. One day, he’ll ask.

* * *

Keith’s time in the circus passes similarly as they travel to the next city, but Allura gives Keith a tent to perform in after she deems him sufficiently knowledgeable about the circus atmosphere.

Keith hardly thinks he has enough experience, but he is itching to help out, ready to do something more than follow everyone else around. He hates being idle when he knows he has the power to help.

Ideas and creativity, though, are not his strong suit. He finds it easy to lose himself the in the different tents of Altea because he doesn’t have the imagination to think of worlds on his own.

She seems to read his insecurities easily. “We’re trying to give them an escape with elemental magic,” Allura explains, as though this is inspiration enough for Keith. “Especially with everything going on outside of Altea.”

“Uhh, what’s going on out there?”

She pats his shoulder and smiles, though Keith isn’t comforted at all by her lack of true response. He tries to focus on the task at hand. “Coran can help you practice! I’m excited to see your first performance!”

As she leaves the tent, Coran enters, and he is all business. He strokes his mustache thoughtfully and provides instruction when needed, watching as Keith crafts the ideas in his head into reality. He thinks of the magic of Altea and tries to represent it with his fire, tones down the heat so he doesn’t hurt anyone. Coran instructs and Keith works, until Keith is more confident.

It’s an odd feeling, to make a mistake and be the only person to notice. (Coran does notice, but his method of instruction means Keith is more observant and Coran need not point out everything.) He has to learn for himself, with the guidance of someone who is not an elemental, of someone who is not trying to hurt him. Coran isn’t trying to mold him into something else, and he’s grateful.

He’s never practiced his fire magic with someone so kind. It’s. . . nice.

“Thank you,” Coran says, a soft look in his eyes, and Keith is startled for a moment. He must have voiced his thoughts aloud.

He smiles back.

Coran talks to him for a little bit longer after their practice (and Keith isn’t good enough at conversation that he can do anything but nod and listen). His mood is considerably lighter, and he decides that he wouldn’t mind practicing with Coran again.

The good mood fades when he leaves the practice tent and runs into Lance.

“Hi?” Keith tests out, trying to make his voice sound friendlier.

Lance doesn’t seem angry. He looks at the tent and then at Keith, frowns. “Hi.” His voice is flat.

“What are you up to?”

He cringes at his tone. It sounds more like he’s questioning his word choice (which he kind of is).

Lance definitely notices, if the smirk on his face is anything to go by. “What are _you_ up to?”

Keith feels his face grow warm. He hasn’t had this long of a conversation with Lance without an argument starting, and Lance’s smirk (smile?) is really pretty. He wants Lance to smile more.

“Practicing,” he stutters, “with Coran.”

“Practicing.” Lance glances at the tent, his expression fading into a scowl. “Of course! Do you get a show soon, too?”

Does that mean Lance is interested in something Keith’s doing? “Yes?”

“Of course you do.”

Lance walks away. Stomps away, really.

Keith doesn’t know what he said wrong, but it stings more than he’d like to admit. He stares at Lance’s fading figure until he can’t see Lance anymore. He feels strangely empty.

After that exchange, they manage to dance around each other for a little longer. They avoid eye contact at dinner, pretend not to see each other in the tents, ignore any mentions of the other’s name. Lance doesn’t notice Keith attending his shows.

Despite the atmosphere between them (it makes the circus itself rather tense as well, though Keith could be imagining it), Keith’s first show ends up rather successful.

It is in front of a small crowd, since the show is unadvertised and Allura doesn’t want him to be nervous in front of a lot of people. She and Coran (and Shiro, though he pretends as though he isn’t hiding in the back) clap the loudest as Keith creates fireworks, blasts of fire, tiny specks of light like fireflies.

He doesn’t move like Lance. He isn’t graceful, isn’t a meant to perform, isn’t supposed to look good when he uses his element. He stands stiffly, awkwardly, controlling the fire as though he isn’t even there, trying to blend into the shadows behind the fire he wields.

It’s freeing, to use his magic in this way, to bend his element and not take credit. At the ends of his performances, he finds himself smiling.

Keith is gathering his props after one of his more recent shows when he hears someone clear their throat.

“Lance?” Keith can’t hide the surprise from his tone, the way his voice hitches. He nearly drops the hoop he is holding. “Why. . .Why are you here?”

Lance looks uncomfortable. Thankfully, there is no one else in the tent. It’s odd, to see how empty the tents can be when they are devoid of magic and people. With Lance there, though, it doesn’t feel empty. “You weren’t that bad, today.”

This odd compliment is enough to make Keith flush pink. “Yeah?” His heart beats a little faster at the thought of Lance watching his show. He tries to remember if he made any mistakes, if he could’ve done better since _Lance had been watching_.

He wants to say something else, but he doesn’t know how to phrase it. He should apologize for starting out badly with Lance, but his pride keeps him from doing so. Part of him wants Lance to say something first, and the other part of him knows he should say something. They can’t avoid each other forever.

They stare at each other in silence for about a minute. Keith blushes harder, and he notes that Lance turns a little pink as well.

“I don’t. . .” Lance frowns. “I’m not. . .”

“I’m not mad at you,” they both mumble at the same time. Keith’s heart beats a little faster. Outside of the tent, the wind picks up, and the fabric of the tent begins to tremble. There is a crash somewhere.

“Oh,” Keith says.

“Cool,” Lance says.

They both nod at each other and go on doing their own separate tasks. Keith’s face is still flushed, and Lance trips on the way out. They pretend they didn’t have this conversation, pretend that they’re still fighting, but they both aren’t very subtle. The atmosphere of the circus picks up. By nightfall everyone in the circus knows that they’re uncertain friends.

* * *

Their uncertain friendship ends up haunting him. Several cities later, Allura decides that having a show combining his and Lance’s elements would be better than showing them off individually. “You can still have separate performances, of course. But for a finale! Can you imagine the reaction of having the elements clash and combine?”

Keith sort of can imagine it. Every time he interacts with Lance something breaks.

“You want us to work _together_?” Lance looks slightly offended. Keith is offended by his tone (he thought they’d bonded, when they’d talked before), but he bites his tongue when he sees how amused Hunk is by Lance’s reaction. Based on Shiro’s own amused expression, Keith guesses he made an unpleasant face.

“It would be a magical experience, fire and water, opposite elements working together and creating something to get lost in!” Allura looks entranced by the idea of it, and Keith already knows this won’t be an argument they can win.

Shiro agrees with Allura, which is enough to temporarily placate Keith. Shiro seems to have a good amount of experience at the circus, seems to understand what is good for Keith. He can trust Shiro, as Shiro is providing him the attention his caretaker never had. “You already showed you could work together from that first day we met Keith. And you’re both getting along better now.”

“I had to work _months_ to get my own solo performance,” Lance complains, glaring at Keith. “And now he gets _another_ one!”

Keith frowns. He. . . didn’t know that. He’d been given a chance to perform as soon as they moved into the next city. He’d thought Lance hadn’t performed immediately after joining Altea due to nerves. Shiro hadn’t implied anything else, and Lance seemed the type to get nervous.

He can’t remember their previous conversations, but now at least he thinks he knows what he’d said wrong.

Pidge snorts, and Lance redirects his glare at her.

“Now you both have two shows?” Hunk offers. “It’s a good thing!”

Hunk’s optimism is enough to make Keith a little hopeful, but that optimism is swiftly crushed.

The first time they try to practice together is more than a disaster. Keith hasn’t felt so out of control in such a long time. He and Lance wind up shooting their elements at each other, with a complete lack of synchrony. The tent would have been destroyed, if not for some kind of magic keeping it from falling apart when their eyes meet.

Spending so much time with Lance is draining and exhilarating all at once. Keith isn’t sure why he and Lance can’t work well together. He wants to.

They talk more than they had before, and he’s always trying to learn more about Lance (even if he doesn’t quite reciprocate with information about himself). It’s just. . . difficult.

He wishes it isn’t.

Their practices together don’t improve much, and Keith isn’t sure if it’s affecting their solo performances as well.

The audience in the latest town is different than the other ones. The crowd is tired, yet irate. Magic doesn’t seem to be enough for them, but they have enough enthusiasm that they are attending the Cirque d’Altea in the first place. It’s very confusing (though Keith swears he recognizes the aura), and even Lance’s wondrous enchantments aren’t enough to appease the crowd.

* * *

The tone of the crowds seems to bring everyone down.

Keith is wandering through the circus one day when he feels it. His head begins to ache as the negative energy wraps around him, squeezing him, hurting him.

It feels like he is a child again.

“ _Keith_ ,” a man sneers, as though the name itself is an insult, “We’ve been wondering about you.” His grip on Keith’s arm is bruising, but Keith shakes him off, warming his other hand with fire and touching his assailant’s arm. The man makes a slightly pained noise but seems otherwise unaffected, his eyes narrowed.

“He can’t control me,” Keith growls, fire in his fists. He’d thought the circus could protect him.

(Lately, though, the crowds are harder to please, the circus seems drained of energy, the magic in the air is weaker.)

“Can’t he?”

The man stands and simply stares, the smirk on his face morphing into the familiar sadistic look on Keith’s caretaker’s face. His eyes glow in that familiar way.

And then there is a pounding in his head, pounding, pounding, pounding. He is a child again, running away for the first time. He stops the fire in his hands to clutch at his skull, to stop the pounding. He’d thought the circus was freedom—the elementals there, the magic, everyone, they were his protection, they were the reason no one had tracked him down and brought him back.

Burn the tent. Burn the tent.

No, Keith thinks, shouts in his head. No. _No_!

Burn.

 _Burn_.

 _Burn the tent_.

Fire grows from his core, returns to his hands, releases. Burn, burn, _burn_.

He isn’t really sure what happens after. All he knows is that the pain is blinding, and then there is no pain at all. He passes out at some point, and the man must have grown tired and left. It is through some miracle that no one sees anything. That is, if the man had even been there at all. Keith isn’t even sure anymore. He wants to believe he’d been hallucinating, prefers to believe that Altea has the ability to protect him like this.

Hunk finds him later, unconscious and leaning against one of tents. He is surrounded by ash. Keith cannot explain what happened, and Hunk (amazing, wonderful Hunk) doesn’t ask.

Neither of them tells anyone.

Everyone has secrets, Keith tells himself. So it’s okay that he doesn’t tell anyone about his past, doesn’t explain what happened.

The idea still shakes him, though, and he focuses his attentions on improving his element, on learning more about his new. . . friends? He’s hesitant to call them that, in case they don’t feel the same. He wants to learn about them nonetheless.

He wants their friendship.

* * *

There is a tent designed to bury secrets and wishes and stories. Outside, the tent is as inconspicuous as any other, but inside the tent, it looks like the shores, sand beneath Keith’s feet. The letters circus-goers write, the buried desires, the secret wishes, everything travels with the circus, as though it is untouched. The air smells like the sea, salty and light, and it is bright inside the tent.

It’s one of Lance’s favorite tents. There is no water there, but, sitting on the warm sand and closing his eyes, it is almost like a beach itself.

He wonders if there’s a reason behind Lance’s love for this tent, but he tries not to disturb Lance when he is sitting in the sand. There’s a certain serenity that surrounds Lance in these moments, and Keith doesn’t want to wreck it (like he always does).

Keith writes his own wish onto a piece of parchment, concealing it deep into the sand. He never goes to look for it, though sometimes he wonders if anyone found it and would recognize those wants as his own.

* * *

Keith is still more than a little reserved, but he’s also trying to open up more. At the very least, he listens to what everyone else has to say (even though he doesn’t offer as much information about himself).

There is a soft touch on his back, and Keith jumps, grabbing the hand and readying a ball of fire in his fist. _Burn_.

“Hey.” Lance’s tone is soothing, though Keith’s heart is still pounding. “It’s just me.”

“Sorry,” Keith mumbles. He rubs his palms on his pants, as though it’ll erase what happened. “Force of habit.”

“That’s. . .” Lance mutters something Keith doesn’t catch.

“So what’s up?”

“How did you,” Lance seems a little uncomfortable, but he asks anyway, “get your scars?”

Keith freezes, realizing how careless he’s been.

Because they all share a tent, they’ve been changing near each other. Usually, he waits until everyone is gone before he changes into his performance clothes. His arms are littered in scars, his body covered in reminders of the times he’s burned himself, slashes of his caretaker’s knife against his skin when he hadn’t properly defended against his attacks. Burn marks from his own fire, from that woman forcing him back to his caretaker when he’d tried to run away. He’s gotten used to Lance’s presence, finds it too easy to let his guard down now.

“What?” Keith repeats, throat dry. He hopes he’s heard Lance wrong.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he says casually, but Keith can see the stiffness in Lance’s shoulders. He doesn’t want to think Lance is asking because he cares, so he doesn’t.

“Accidents while practicing.” Keith fastens his buttons quickly, though his hands are shaking. One of the buttons pops off of the shirt and rolls away. “I’m sure you’ve hurt yourself playing with water, too.”

“Hmph,” Lance snorts, “you wish.”

“Why are you here?” Keith wonders aloud, staring at his shoes instead of at Lance’s face. He can smell burning, like he’s sending fire from his feet. Irritated at his lack of control, he repeats the question more strongly. “Why join Altea?”

He’s changing the subject, badly, and Lance can tell, because Lance is miles better at reading people than Keith could ever hope to be.

But if Lance can learn about Keith’s scars, then Keith wants to learn about Lance. He wants to _know_ Lance, but he has a hard time. He doesn’t know how.

He doesn’t want to offend Lance, but he’s run the phrase through his head so many times already and he can’t think of another way to ask. There is probably a better time to ask, but Keith isn’t patient enough to get to that time.

Sometimes it seems like Lance doesn’t want to be in the circus at all, despite his talents, and Keith doesn’t know why someone would join unless they were running from something. (But then, that’s a very close-minded way to think.)

He’s seen Lance looking longingly into the crowd, a smile on his lips at large families having fun together. He’s heard the stiffness in Lance’s tone when he has to describe why he’s here.

“Hunk is looking for someone,” Lance says at last. He seems hesitant. “I couldn’t let him find her without company.”

“You knew each other before Altea?”

Keith doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Lance and Hunk have a comfort with each other of which Keith is a little envious. They understand each other without speaking, they know so much about each other. Watching them interact is watching a relationship Keith hopes to one day have with someone.

“For years.”

“Ah.” Keith lets the awkward silence sit for a moment before continuing, almost questioningly, “Where are you from?”

“You probably wouldn’t have heard of it,” Lance says, laughing a little as Keith swats at him. Keith doesn’t know a lot, but he’s not completely oblivious. “I’m from a city called Havana! Hunk moved there when I was younger, but we both left at the same time for Altea.”

“Havana?” Keith repeats, lips turning into a frown. “I think. . . I might have lived there before?”

“No way!” Lance looks so excited. He grabs Keith’s hand, and for a moment Keith forgets how to breathe.

The air around him feels like it’s changed, everything is warmer somehow, Lance’s eyes are shining and he looks so—

“It was a year or so ago?” Keith mumbles, trying not to get distracted by Lance, by the way the lights are flickering. “We weren’t there that long.” They left after a few weeks.

“We?”

Keith fights off the feelings that always arise when he thinks of his life before the circus. “I used to live with a, umm, a caretaker.” Havana was a city of colors. The buildings weren’t a dull gray; the people weren’t dull people. Everyone spoke and laughed with such energy, and Keith remembers watching from his window and wanting to join in their fire, be part of them. “We. . . moved. A lot?”

Lance searches Keith’s face for something, and the scrutiny makes Keith’s face heat up. “Sorry to pry,” he says at last. He offers Keith a small smile, and Keith melts. The lanterns lighting their path die, and they are left in darkness. Keith debates for a moment before lighting a small fire in the palm of his hand. He holds it up to light their path. Lance appears to glow. “Where did you stay?”

“We were in the apartments near a school.”

“Oh, so kind of close to the park?”

“Yeah.” Keith thinks back to the short time they lived there, how he hadn’t even bothered trying to leave because of how tired he was. “But I didn’t really go. I, uhh, I didn’t leave the apartment much.”

“We could’ve met earlier, Keith! I was at the park with Hunk and Shay a lot, we cou—”

Keith, for a moment, pictures his life had he met Lance earlier. If he’d gotten the chance to meet him, meet another elemental, what would have changed? Would Lance have been able to help him? Would he have wanted Lance’s help at all? Keith thinks he would have just enjoyed talking to Lance, as he does now. Lance would’ve made those days in Havana more bearable.

He wishes he had met Lance long ago.

Lance, the first person to get mad at him, but not hurt him for it. Lance, the boy who is showing him that elemental magic is something beautiful.

“What?” Keith realizes slowly that Lance has stopped talking. Lance stares at him. “I. Yeah.”

They’re both quiet, staring at the fire in Keith’s hand, before Keith finally continues the conversation, “What’s your family like? What was it like growing up there?”

Lance perks up at the chance to talk about his family, and Keith feels a small smile tug at his lips as he gets lost listening to Lance speak.

And so Keith continues to listen and get lost in Lance’s words, letting Lance carry him places and teach him things, until their conversations are a staple, a normal part of their daily lives in Altea (along with all the arguments that make their companions roll their eyes).

Keith loves it.

* * *

The normalcy of Altea is shattered. Keith should have expected it, but he doesn’t.

“There’s something I want to tell you all.” Allura is wringing her hands together, and her nerves make Keith a little tense himself.

She’s called them all together for a meeting, but it is easy to tell that it isn’t just a meeting when they arrive. Only those with true magical gifts, as well as Shiro and Coran, are present. Where initially Keith had believed the circus was full of people who brandished magic, he knows now how this is not the case.

The people at the circus are all like him, in some way. Some people are missing something, looking for a part of them. Some people are escaping from the outside. Some people need a place to belong. The circus travels from city to city, gathering people who need it, freeing people who don’t. It arrives unexpectedly and provides a safe haven, scooping up people who otherwise have no one, providing a getaway.

Keith doesn’t know the reasons behind why everyone is at the circus, what motivates everyone to do what they do, but he understands that they all have their own pasts. He likes everyone, he feels safe around them, he trusts them; and he hasn’t trusted people in a long time.

“You probably noticed the darker auras of our attendees lately,” she begins slowly. At everyone’s hesitant nods, she continues, “And by now you might have assumed how the circus travels to protect everyone.”

Keith knows the circus is protecting him, but he isn’t sure about everyone else. Lance appears to be as confused as he is, so at least he isn’t the only person stunned by this realization.

“We travel to cities where there is the most danger,” Shiro steps in, “and those who are at the most risk of power manipulation are welcomed to our circus.”

“Manipulation?”

Keith feels hollow at the word.

Allura looks worried. “There’s a magic out there darker than elemental magic. It manipulates our own beings, the fragments of spirit—the _quintessence_ , if you will—that make us exist.”

“Wait, wait,” Lance interrupts. “They can control _people_?”

“Quinta-what?” Keith thinks of the way his hands moved toward his own neck, the fire he sent at himself. Would he never have known, if he’d never joined the circus? “How?”

Hunk sighs. “It explains. . . a lot, actually. Before I joined Altea, I was friends with a girl named Shay.” Lance wraps an arm around Hunk, obviously familiar with the story. Keith has heard a shortened version of this from Lance before, he remembers. “She’s also an earth elemental. We used to practice together, when Lance was showing off his water tricks for the girls in class.” Lance sticks out his tongue as Pidge raises her eyebrows. “But something happened. One day she was just. . . _sad_. She wasn’t able to use her magic properly, she was argumentative. It wasn’t like her at all. Her aura was completely different. And then she was gone.”

 _I’m trying to find her now_ goes unsaid.

Everyone is silent for a moment, pondering.

Pidge breaks the silence. “So all the elementals here?”

“There’s someone who wants to destroy the peace we have between elementals and people without magic,” Allura says. “Those people manipulate the quintessence in everyone. I can use my own elemental powers to calm them, but it’s _your_ elemental performances that truly help in healing these people.”

Shiro continues, “While we can’t directly return the quintessence that has been stolen, we’re given them a different kind of magic through our elemental performances. It’s not enough to fix what happened, but it slows things from getting worse.”

“How exactly does a circus restore quintessence?” Pidge pushes her glasses higher on her face. She doesn’t seem surprised at Shiro’s or Allura’s words, so Keith suspects she might already have known about the meaning of Altea.

“I can channel quintessence,” Allura admits.

“But it’s a draining process,” Coran interjects, twirling his mustache. “Other elemental magics channel the tiniest bit of quintessence as well, since it’s the strongest connection we as humans can have with the natural world. By performing with these magics, or creating tents and crafts with them, you’re helping the Curator a great deal.”

Nodding, Allura continues, “The pieces of magic throughout Altea can help mend some of the damage, and I channel that quintessence to make sure it is healing them properly. This way, nothing bad can happen from too much or too little quintessence exposure.”

“What do you think could happen?” Lance’s face appears unaffected, but his voice doesn’t.

Hunk clenches his fists. “He’s changing people, when he does this. He’s taking _them_ away.”

“I think he takes away people’s quintessence, which ruins them,” Shiro says, as a more formal explanation. “But too much quintessence must be how he controls people.” Keith's heart skips a beat.

“He?” Lance frowns. “What’s this guys name?”

“Zarkon,” Shiro says.

Allura gives him a sad smile. “But it’s more than just Zarkon; he’s part of something. And they call themselves the Galra.”

He pretends he hasn’t heard that name before.


	2. chapter two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back nearly a year later and this is still not done, sorry! school was hectic and then when i finally got to writing, this took on a life of its own. your comments really helped motivate me to write (i'm sorry i didn't get the chance to answer them on time, and now i feel like it's too late so i just keep rereading them without responding aaaaa i'm sorry)
> 
> also, i got way too excited about season 3 (find me on tumblr and talk to me about it omg).
> 
> hope you enjoy!!

Allura and Shiro don’t believe that Altea can (or should) take the fight to the Galra, though Keith feels useless sitting around. He knows, realistically, that Altea has too few elementals to take on however many Galra there are, but the more time he spends with them, the more he believes they have the power to take on the Galra and win.

They are helping people the way they travel now, but they aren’t doing anything to prevent the Galra from continuing their attacks. What’s the point of knowing motives and going around to prevent damage from getting worse when they could potentially stop the damage from occurring in the first place? They’re too reactive. They’re not taking initiative.

(Keith knows what this is like, all too well.)

When tries to suggest fighting the Galra, though, Shiro disagrees immediately.

“We need to plan an attack like that. We don’t know where the Galra are or what the best approach would be.”

“I’m going to have to agree with Shiro on this,” Hunk offers, though his voice is miserable. “Maybe we shouldn’t fight them until we know what we’re up against.”

Pidge nods, and Keith is about to argue but she continues, “Until we bring the fight to them, I don’t think we’re going to get an idea of _anything_ that we’re up against.”

Coran has his hand on his chin thoughtfully, and Lance is silent as he looks between everyone’s faces.

“I understand where you’re coming from, Keith, Pidge.” Shiro’s voice is diplomatic, consoling. “But we can’t attack anyone. We’re doing what we can right now.”

“I’d love to fight the Galra.” Allura’s voice is fierce. It makes Keith wonder about her story, why she runs Altea, why she fights the Galra. How did she end up in this world? “It just isn’t what we can do _right now_.”

“Then when _can_ we fight them?” Pidge cuts in before Keith.

“I want to fight them, too,” Hunk interjects. “I want to find Shay and stop this from happening to more people. But right now. . . We need to figure out how.”

“Pidge,” Shiro starts, a warning tone to his voice. Keith turns to look at Pidge, but there isn’t anything on her expression that implies she did anything. She just smiles. Keith is confused.

He watches her walk away while his lips draw into a scowl. Hunk looks torn between running after Pidge and staying where he is. Allura sighs. Lance still hasn’t said anything, and Keith doesn’t know why.

* * *

The understanding of why Cirque d’Altea exists does not change the atmosphere of the circus at all. Keith does, however, start taking his performances more seriously. He’s already trained to fight, but he needs to be stronger in case the Galra come and try to hurt anyone from Altea (the circus is starting to mean more to him than he’d ever expected, and he doesn’t want to lose that).

The non-elementals do not appear affected. They come and go as they did before, escaping their previous lives and leaving when their time has come. The crowds remain unappeased, but Keith hopes that will change.

They are blissfully ignorant of the magic surrounding them, of the secrets behind how they move from city to city so quickly, behind how Lance and Keith manipulate elements in their separate performances, behind how Hunk’s and Pidge’s elemental abilities are the backbone to many of the mysteries of Altea.

But while nothing has outwardly changed, the unpleasant worrying that has been churning in Keith’s gut since that previous incident with one of his caretaker’s friends has only been building. Something tells him that things will end badly.

So he throws himself into his training, his practices, his fire. He will contribute and build Altea up, so nothing can tear them down.

He practices his fire magic a lot, when he thinks no one is around. Lance’s performances have been getting better and better, and Lance’s improvement is even more motivation for himself. He can’t fall behind. He can’t give Lance anything else to brag about (though he has the right).

Besides. There’s something relieving about having full power over himself and his choices. His magic is finally his own, his fire under his own control.

When he performs alone, his fire lighting up the tent in different lights and shapes, a careful soft warmth for the audience, Keith feels fully alive.

He doesn’t hear the audience, doesn’t truly see them. He can hear the crackle of fire in his hands as he conjures a fire whip to snap and raise the fire animals he summons. He can feel the heat in his body, the excited flush on his face. Compared to what he’s had to do in the past, this is nothing.

This is fun. This is freedom. This is _him_.

He performs almost mindlessly, growing more and more comfortable with himself, with the people around him, with the idea of being part of Altea. He loses himself in his thoughts easily and is still a loner (he has too many years of experience being alone that he can’t really shake off that feeling), but everyone makes him comfortable.

The circus is feeling like a home.

“You were amazing!” Hunk claps a hand on Keith’s back, plopping onto the seat next to him at dinner, pulling Keith from his thoughts. “I didn’t think it was possible to make fire lions!”

“Oh, uhh,” Keith swallows, uncomfortable with all of the staring, “thanks?”

Shiro hands Pidge a plate of food before facing Keith. “Your practicing is really paying off. I’m happy to see you growing into your element, and I think the audience can feel it, too.” He smiles, and Keith feels much more at ease with his work. He is doing this for himself, for the circus-goers. But he also really doesn’t want to let Shiro and the others down.

“You didn’t mess up too much,” Lance concedes.

“Yeah?” Lance went to one of his performances? He can’t stop his voice from sounding pleased. Lance notices, of course.

“Don’t get too confident, pyro.”

Lance looks up and makes eye contact. When their eyes meet (he could stare at Lance’s eyes forever, they’re so _blue_ , so pretty), Keith feels pleasantly warm. His heart races. In the distance, something shatters, loudly.

It jolts them back to reality, and they look away from each other as though staring for too long would make things worse.

His face burns. “We should. . . practice. Together.” Keith can feel the awkwardness in the atmosphere, the silence at his suggestion.

Everyone’s eyes are on him.

Finally, after what feels like hours, Lance clears his throat. “Finally admitting you need my help with something, _Keith_?”

Lance’s smirk makes Keith’s heart flutter. They haven’t practiced for their show together in a while. The news about the Galra had been enough to distract everyone, and they’d all sort of forgotten it was supposed to happen. Considering all the failed tries in the past, maybe everyone had given up on the idea.

“It’s okay to want to spend time with The Lance Master.” He winks, and Keith just wants to melt. His face flares red (and his palms burn, he really needs to set something on fire). “I don’t mind teaching you some tricks of the trade.”

Before he can make a comeback, Pidge interrupts, “Oh _please_ , Lance, we all know you’re _fired_ up to practice with Keith.”

“Fired up? Me? _Keith_?” Lance’s voice cracks. “No!”

Shiro seems disappointed in Lance’s response, and Keith tries to hide his own disappointment. He mumbles something he knows is rude, just to get everyone’s attention off of him, and Lance jumps at the argument. As with all of their arguments, everything gets heated, and Keith’s urge to burn something grows.

* * *

Though things are slightly awkward between him and Lance, Keith continues going to the tent of _Lance the Enchanter_.

There’s something calming about attending—Altea in general makes him appreciate being an elemental, but seeing Lance really reminds him that there’s a beauty in being close to your element.

He likes that.

In the meantime, Pidge starts her own reconnaissance when the performances are occurring, since she isn’t obligated to perform or go to anyone’s shows. Keith is hiding in the back of a tent before one of Lance’s shows when she invites him to join her.

“I know you don’t want to miss a single Lance performance”—Keith makes an unattractive noise he later denies—“but this is arguably more important.”

“Arguably.” Keith glances at the empty platforms at the center of the tent, tense as though Lance is about to tell him off for leaving without watching him (but Lance doesn’t know that Keith watches all his shows, so that’s impossible). He hops off his seat in the stands. “Let’s go.”

Pidge rolls her eyes. “These are tiered seats. There are stairs.” Keith gives her a half smile, and she chuckles. “Right. Who needs stairs?”

They leave as a large crowd starts to enter, and Keith feels a little guilty for leaving Lance’s show. Pidge is right, and he hasn’t technically missed one. But one show won’t hurt.

Pidge walks briskly, weaving through the crowd with practiced ease. Keith follows close behind. The number of Altea attendees today seems larger than usual.

Keith isn’t sure if he’s supposed to make conversation. Pidge is usually not one for small talk, but Keith has been talking to Shiro more and he suggested opening up to people. Keith’s not so good at that, but he wants to be.

They pass some tents Keith feels like he hasn’t seen before based on the names on their signs, and he’s about to comment on them, but Pidge stops so suddenly that Keith runs into her. She pushes him away but not roughly.

“Have you seen this tent before?”

The tent itself looks like all the other ones, striped with white and pale pink or blue. There are swarms of people around them, but no one ever recognizes Keith outside of his shows, and no one bothers them now. The tent before them has pale pink stripes, though the pink is more a shade of purple. The sign states it is the fortuneteller.

“Yeah.” Keith stares at the sign without blinking. He remembers the woman who looked like she was crying, the dark feeling twisting inside him that made him run. “I never went inside, though.”

Pidge nods. “Okay.” She pulls something from her pocket and makes a note, then leads Keith to another tent. Then another. Then another.

Several tents later, and Keith wonders how helpful he really is or what this information even contributes. Pidge shrugs when he asks, then leads him to yet another tent.

“This one’s my favorite,” she says, peering at him over the edge of her glasses.

The tent is one that is run by a non-elemental, but it’s not one of their more popular ones. It gives people the chance to see different possibilities, different realms of chances, and it has the makings of a wonderful tent, if not for—

“You like talking to Slav?” Keith wonders, surprised. Shiro hates this tent, though he tries to be polite about it. It’s actually pretty funny.

“Not so much talking to him”—she rolls her eyes when Keith laughs and thinks of Shiro—“as seeing different realities. Some of the ties between different realities can come to fruition here.” She turns back to stare at the tent, this one striped with a pale blue. “If I know how things work out in other universes, maybe we can find the answers to this one.”

He’s never thought of it that way. He hasn’t really been looking for answers to anything. He’d stopped caring about his identity when his caretaker tried to take it from him.

But, not for the first time, he wonders why Pidge is at Altea. He doesn’t find it the right time to ask, but the question is burning at the tip of his tongue. The desire to ask overwhelms him, and Pidge has to smack his arm so he stops burning the ground underneath his feet, so the fire glowing and swirling out of control in his hands calms and fades.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“One day,” Pidge promises, and she leads him to another tent before he can ask her what she means.

* * *

After dinner the next night, when everyone is heading in separate directions, Lance approaches Keith.

At first, Keith doesn’t think Lance is looking at him, so he ignores Lance. But Lance clears his throat loudly and makes weird humming noises until Keith gives in and stares at him.

“Dinner was great today,” he says, conversationally. He’s wearing an oversized blue jacket (it looks pretty good on him), and his hands are in his pockets.

Keith frowns. Lance confuses him. “Hunk always makes good dinner.”

“Well, yeah. But. . .”

“So there isn’t really a point in pointing it out?”

“Ugh, Keith, this is small talk. You need to let it happen before the deep conversation starts.” Lance laughs, and Keith’s heart skips a beat. “Jeez, do I have to teach you _everything_?”

Despite the months he’s been here, Keith doesn’t think he can get used to small talk. “I’m pretty sure you’re the one who has a lot to learn from _me_ ,” he says anyway.

Lance sighs and rolls his eyes. “Did you mean what you said at dinner?”

Keith’s heart starts beating a lot louder. He suggested they practice together again, and Lance brushed him off _again_. He doesn’t know why he keeps bringing it up (no, that’s a lie, he knows exactly why he keeps bringing it up), but it hurts to keep getting rejected so casually. “You mean that you get tripped up over pretty girls in the audience?” He chuckles, trying to cover up the sound of his heartbeat, which is much too fast and is definitely too noticeable.

The lights around them flicker.

“Okay, firstly, rude. I don’t ‘trip up’ I gracefully get their attention. Second, you know what I’m talking about.”

“Then you know I meant it,” Keith shoots back. His face starts to burn. He didn’t mean for his words to sound so emotional. Lance stares at him, wide-eyed.

One of the lights hanging above them chooses that moment to explode, and the air around them starts to feel stiflingly warm.

Keith stares at Lance silently, hoping Lance is the one to break the silence because Keith has no idea what to say.

“D’you wanna go now?” Lance pauses. “Practice together?”

 _Yes_. Keith shrugs. “Sure, why not?”

They walk to one of the performance tents in silence. Around them, the lights continue to flicker, and though the scene looks rather ominous to Keith, he feels at ease standing next to Lance.

Though they argue a lot, he always feels comfortable with Lance.

The tent is the same way Keith left it after his performance. It is an open floor stage with several raised platforms scattered throughout, surrounded by the rising seats (where Keith likes to hide in the back row for Lance’s performances). Nothing is burned, but the air smells smoky, and Keith’s eyes water upon entering though he should be used to the scent by now.

Keith and Hunk had created the hanging lights for the tent, little balls of fire in metallic cages flickering to create a certain atmosphere. It’s all very comfortable.

“So.”

“So.”

Lance gestures at Keith.

Sighing, Keith jumps into the air and kicks, a burst of flame jolting Lance out of whatever stupor he’s in. Lance pulls some water from the air in a graceful arch, freezing it around him as he spins into a new position. Keith tries not to get lost in Lance’s element.

Though it’s been awhile since they’ve practiced together, nothing has changed. They both don’t have any idea how they want to combine their elements in a performance, and Keith’s fire has too much initial impact for Lance’s liking while Lance’s movements are too complicated for Keith to follow.

“I can’t _not_ move when I work with water, Keith. It’s the element of change and _flow_.” He wiggles his arms in such a stupid motion Keith can’t help but laugh. Lance’s expression softens. “But you can’t just charge into the show like you normally do, either.”

“Yeah,” Keith agrees, but he doesn’t have any ideas so he doesn’t say anything else.

Lance stares at him for a minute, then laughs. “A man of many words. Okay.”

“Oh.” Keith isn’t used to saying much or being permitted to say what he wants to say. He knows he can be argumentative and brash, though, so in a way Lance is lucky since he doesn’t have to deal with it now. They argue so much already. “But fire is more of a power element?” he offers.

“Fire isn’t all about power and destruction,” Lance says, and his tone says this so obviously. Keith raises an eyebrow.

He remembers being told to burn their apartments when they left year after year, the way fire (especially his own fire) spirals out of control so quickly, how easily it can hurt, can obliterate—

_He doesn’t want to do this, he doesn’t want to burn anything else. Burn it. Using his element makes him tired, pulls the energy of his being and creates something physical from it. Burn it. Keith tries to block out the voice in his head, focuses on his hands, on keeping the power within him quelled. Burn it._

_Burn it. Burn it. Burn it._

—“I mean,” Lance directs a pointed look at Keith, and Keith shakes himself from his memories. “Fire can be. . .” Lance seems annoyed to say this, “like that first day.”

Keith frowns, thinking. “Stopping uncontrolled ice from hurting people,” he says as the memory forms.

Lance glares at him. “Thanks.” Biting his lip, Keith struggles to find the words he means to say. Lance doesn’t let Keith talk, though. Instead, he mumbles something that catches Keith’s attention. Actually, it takes Keith a few moments of repeating the phrase in his head to understand. “Fire can be light.”

Keith looks at Lance in a way that Pidge starts taunting him for, since apparently he keeps directing the same expression at Lance. They bend their elements in a new type of dance, so Lance is the center and Keith is the background light. The ideas flow.

Outside of the tent, it starts to rain.

* * *

“So.”

Keith is trying to use his fire to melt sand to glass, so there can be some additional decorations for Altea, but it’s a delicate task and he isn’t too great at them. At Shiro’s tone, though, he breaks his concentration and looks up. It’s a few days after he and Lance have started practicing together. Sure, he and Lance aren’t being secretive about it, but he knows they can be hard to ignore with all their shouting (and all the damage that seems to keep occurring whenever they so much as look at each other).

“What,” he says flatly.

Shiro is smirking, and Keith’s heart squeezes. “You and La—”

“ _What?_ ” Keith demands, voice cracking. Fire burns around him, and Shiro quickly calms him, hands up and placating, so the flames subside. Keith’s face burns in embarrassment. He needs to get his emotional outbursts under control, but it’s hard. He never thinks about it.

“You’ve been practicing a lot.” Shiro’s tone is pleased, but he leaves the conversation open, so Keith doesn’t have to talk about anything if he doesn’t want. Shiro’s good at talking, good at making Keith talk too. He feels guilty not saying anything.

“How do you know?”

It’s not exactly what he wanted to say, but everyone has been talking about him practicing with Lance. He isn’t aware of every time the other elementals practice, and he never bothers them about it. But Coran stopped him before one of his shows the other day and congratulated him on settling his differences with his fellow elemental. Pidge keeps making faces at him. Hunk hasn’t said anything, but whenever they’re all in the same vicinity, Keith sees Hunk giving Lance these _looks_.

They don’t get along smoothly after the success of their first practice, but Lance seems less angry at Keith about everything, so Keith is less argumentative about everything.

For some reason, this is enough to make Keith happy.

Shiro bites his lip. “When you and Lance interact. . . we all know.”

“Thanks.” Keith sighs, stares at the metal and glass objects around him. “We’re just practicing for our combined show. That would be a lot of elemental magic for Allura’s quintessence thing, right?”

There is definitely surprise in Shiro’s face. Keith isn’t sure if he should be insulted, but it’s Shiro. “That’s. . . Yes, probably.”

“So then it’s no big deal.” Keith frowns, thinking of Lance moving in closer and taking Keith’s arms and showing him how to move gracefully, the stuttering between them as the lights in the tent all die at once, the racing of his heart every time Lance performs a complex move then attempts to teach Keith what to do in the background.

Shiro doesn’t say anything. Keith appreciates that, turning his attention back to the glass he’s working on, so he isn’t still thinking about when he practices with Lance.

(He’s still thinking about it, days later.)

* * *

At their first public performance together, Keith uses his fire to create different colored lights, a pale warmth of yellows and reds, whites and blues. He lights the flames to accentuate Lance’s dance, so everyone can truly see how bright this enchanter is.

Keith’s costume is a flowing crimson shirt with gold buttons and a dark collar, a red top hat, and fitted black pants. It is nowhere near as flashy as Lance’s (this time half of his suit a pale blue and the other half a pure white, clashing at the center in crystals and stars). Coran has really outdone himself, though the ideas are Lance’s.

Lance stands at the center, water rising around him, surrounding them both in arches and sprays, raining over the crowd in light and warmth.

The crowd has never been in anything so magical, water and light fluttering around them.

Keith, too, is mesmerized by Lance’s movements. He feels like he is back at the first performance he’d seen of Lance, the first time he’d seen an elemental using power in such a beautiful way. He almost misses his cue, lost in the freedom and beauty of Lance’s elemental masterpiece.

Keith meets Lance’s eyes, face warm and eyes bright, and he smiles.

The magic of their interaction spreads to the crowd, brightening everyone’s moods, lightening the atmosphere. Their combined elemental magic brings the audience back to life. The applause is deafening; it takes them both away from reality for just a little while, pulls them into their own world.

It is just them, in this world. And Keith can’t wait to do it again.

* * *

In their shared tent (it’s cluttered with Lance’s beauty products, with Hunk’s and Pidge’s gadgets, with old performance clothes, a lot of burnt objects that Keith can’t bear to throw out), the elementals gather into a small group, voices hushed so the others won’t overhear.

Though their performances are definitely causing changes in the crowds, it isn’t enough to make anyone forget that the Galra are out there and there’s a reason the crowds had been like this in the first place. No matter how many shows, no matter how amazing those shows, if they don’t attack the root of the problem, nothing is going to change.

“I think we should leave Altea,” Hunk announces. At the look on Lance’s face (Keith’s heart skips a beat at Hunk’s words, as well), he quickly amends, “Not like that! I mean, like an outside investigation!”

Pidge seems excited at the prospect. “I have a few things I need to test out, and since we just got here, this could be our chance.”

“What, like _how_ they take quintessence? Or what happens after?”

“Both?”

“How do you propose we find out?”

“I don’t think we’d be able to figure that out,” Keith says. His mouth feels dry. He doesn’t particularly want to leave, even if it’s just for a short while. As much as he wants to help everyone beat the Galra, Altea is protecting him when he’s inside. If he leaves, he’s opening the opportunity for his caretaker to take him back.

Pidge is thoughtful. “Maybe we can find the signs of quintessence manipulation and work from there.”

“Sensing quintessence probably isn’t that easy.” Hunk sighs. “I can sense a bad feeling from miles away, and I don’t even think I’d be able to tell.”

Lance looks at Keith, and Keith crosses his arms and looks away, face warm. “What, are _you_ able to sense the quintessence, pyro?”

Keith almost doesn’t want to say anything. He’s already basically admitting that he’s experienced it before. But it would be worse to not say anything. Maybe he doesn’t want to leave, but this isn’t about him. This is about them, about everyone. And Lance just implied he _couldn’t_ do something even though he _can_. “Yeah.”

Hunk gives him a weird look and Pidge raises her eyebrows. There’s a look on Lance’s face that could be considered angry, but before Keith can say anything Lance shrugs. “If the guy thinks he can do it, what are we waiting for?”

“Let me finish something I’ve been working on!” Pidge rushes off. “Hunk!”

“Coming!”

With a heavy heart, Keith joins when they sneak out after sunset.

Pidge is the lightest on her feet, and she and Lance have no trouble making their way out quietly. Hunk is visibly nervous about leaving, despite it being his idea, and he’s mumbling something to himself while he tiptoes. The entrance to Altea is a white stone arch, and Keith pauses to look at it as they walk out. He hadn’t admired it the first time he’d entered Altea, and he hasn’t really been in this area since then.

He _really_ doesn’t want to leave.

“The arch emits an invisible barrier that wraps around the perimeter of Altea,” Pidge says when Keith and Hunk finally exit. “That’s why only some people can enter.”

“Allura probably senses the bad quintessence and filters it out.” Hunk answers the question before Keith can ask.

Lance stretches his arms as though leaving Altea is freeing. It doesn’t feel particularly different now that they are outside of the barrier, but the open space leaves him feeling vulnerable. He wants to be surrounded by tents and magic, not _this_.

Keith doesn’t know what city they’re in this time, but the circus itself is stationed in an open field near the woods. There is a path nearby that looks to lead to a neighboring town, which is probably where the circus attendees are coming from, and there aren’t many lights.

“So where are we going?”

Pidge pulls a device from her pocket, a strange contraption that Keith can’t even begin to place.

“My guess is that city?” Keith shrugs. He can recognize the aura when it comes. This place doesn’t seem too familiar, and though he’s a little nervous, he isn’t instinctively running back to Altea, which might be a good sign. He needs to get over this stupid fear anyway.

“Let’s just look for something weird and follow it,” Lance suggests.

Pidge glances at him, a smirk on her lips. “Let’s follow you then, Lance.”

“Sure, I—” Lance scowls. Keith laughs at the look on Lance’s face. “I hate you sometimes,” he says, but his voice is fond.

It’s kind of nice traveling with friends in a new city. Though the circumstances aren’t the best, he likes watching everyone interact with each other. He doesn’t have anything to say to add to their conversations, but he can really see how close Hunk and Lance are, how much fun they have with Pidge.

The town is dark, with only a few flickering lights standing in their path. None of the homes have their lights on. In the darkness, Keith can see that the buildings are dull from being well-lived in and used, browns and grays, soft grass under their feet. It’s nothing like the previous places Keith has lived, but he could picture living here, if he hadn’t run to Altea.

Other than their group, it is quiet.

“Maybe the Galra already left?” Hunk offers. He seems torn from being happy to not confront them but also upset at losing the chance to confront them.

Keith closes his eyes and frowns. He can sense other elementals, the high quintessence that comes from wielding an element. So the Galra haven’t finished in this town.

“They’re still here,” Keith disagrees, but he offers no explanation. Pidge nods in agreement, waving her invention.

What makes the Galra _act_ , though? What is their motivation?

They hear a door creak open.

Hunk lets out a screech and jumps behind Lance, who moves into a fighting stance. Keith feels fire flare at his hands. He’s ready to burn something.

Pidge looks around, unfazed. “I don’t see anything.”

“Oh.” Everyone shifts out of their poses.

Keith glances around. He doesn’t feel like anything’s over yet.

Hunk seems to get the same feeling. “I know I heard something.” His voice is determined. “It’s deserted here except for us. Let’s try to find someone.”

“Should we split up?” Lance offers. “I can go with—”

“Not Keith,” Hunk and Pidge say at the same time.

“Uhh. . .” Keith glances at Lance and shrugs. He isn’t sure if he should be offended by how quickly the other elementals had shot down their teamwork. They’ve been getting along a little better lately.

Lance looks a little irritated. “I mean, I don’t want to work with him, but _come on_ , we aren’t that bad!”

Pidge gives them both an unimpressed look. Keith can’t maintain eye contact. His face feels warm. “Something’s going to explode if we leave you two alone together.”

It’s horribly embarrassing to actually hear them both say it out loud, and Keith’s blush deepens. Has Lance noticed, too? That might be even worse. But then, maybe he noticed and doesn’t care? Keith isn’t sure what would be best.

“No?” Keith says anyway. Everyone ignores him.

Hunk nods, looking unhappy to be telling Lance this information. “Sorry, buddy. Let’s just go together.”

“I was going to suggest that anyway, _Pidge_!” Lance and Hunk head off, Lance mumbling something as they walk away. Pidge clears her throat.

“Let’s go that way, then,” she suggests, barely giving Keith the chance to agree before she starts walking.

Again, Keith doesn’t know what to say to try maintaining a conversation, but Pidge doesn’t seem to mind. She’s busy examining everything around her, the gadget in her hands making soft beeping noises as she walks.

“It’s scanning for quintessence,” Pidge says, since she can probably feel Keith’s questioning gaze. “I need to figure out how to make it ignore our signatures, though. We’re throwing it off.”

Keith nods. “The people in these homes still have their quintessence. We’re looking for a really high amount of quintessence or none at all.”

Pidge scrutinizes the device in her hands, tapping at it lightly. “I’m going to need to do some adjusting,” she mutters unhappily. “Guess it’s up to you.”

“Should we just catch up with Hunk and. . .” Keith pauses, frowns. There is an unpleasant churning in his gut, an all too familiar feeling. Though there’s a hint of fear (at being caught and found again, of seeing what he might see), he sprints forward. “That way!” he whispers back, not bothering to check if Pidge follows.

He weaves through the town, past shops and signs, sidewalks and streets. He hears Pidge’s footsteps and doesn’t glance back, trusting her to keep up. The feeling builds as he gets closer.

They reach a clearing, what must be the town square. There are people here.

“Keith!” Pidge hisses at him, grabbing his arm.

Keith can’t tear his eyes away from the people he assumes are the Galra.

There’s a small figure, hooded and difficult to see in the darkness, if not for the glow of purple quintessence swirling in the air around her and around the elemental in her partner’s grasp. The exchange is silent, but the shift in the air is palpable.

The elemental is standing tall, a sliver of purple escaping her lips, and then she falls forward. The man holding her drops her to the ground when the quintessence is pulled away. She hits the ground with a soft thud.

Pidge’s hold on Keith’s arm tightens. He wants to jump into the group and fight these Galra, but part of him is frozen. He sees himself as the elemental in that Galra’s grasp.

The woman on the ground struggles to lift her head. Her arm is weak as it rises, and she spits out a small flame from her palm before it sputters and dies.

“Can she not. . .”

“Is it temporary?”

He doesn’t know who said what, doesn’t know the answer the question.

The woman who pulled the quintessence from this elemental begins to laugh as the glow of dark magic surrounds her.

“Run!” Pidge half-whispers, half-shouts, and she starts sprinting. It takes a few moments for Keith to realize that Pidge has left in the same way he had earlier.

But he can’t stop staring. The pull of quintessence is magnetizing, the purple glow as it is used blinding. He feels like he’s back in an apartment again, stuck with his caretaker and practicing his fire—

_“Again!” The words are harsh as Keith fumbles into a better position._

_His caretaker’s friends have no sympathy despite Keith’s age, and he feels his arm twist backward (he hates when this happens, when he’s made to not fight back, since he doesn’t know how to combat his caretaker’s control), feels the fire graze him as he attempts to move away._

_“If you can’t fight this, what good are you?”_

—“Keith!” He jolts at the touch of someone’s hand on his shoulder. Pidge drags him forward. “C’mon, let’s go!”

Keith nods, finally tearing away his gaze and following Pidge.

They run and run, footsteps loud and hearts racing. Keith feels a stitch in his side but he doesn’t let it deter him. He doesn’t know if the Galra knows that they were there, if they are being followed, if there’s even a need for them to run. He just knows that they are running.

At some point he’s run past Pidge, but he can hear her behind him.

Lance and Hunk are waiting for them at the entrance to Altea. Hunk has his arm wrapped around Lance’s shoulders. Keith’s footsteps slow and he almost trips when he sees Lance is shaking.

He doesn’t like the look on Lance’s face.

“What happened?” Pidge demands, when she catches up behind Keith. “Lance? Hunk?”

Hunk shakes his head. Lance says nothing, avoids eye contact with everyone. They both look like they’ve gone through a lot. Their clothes are torn and dirtied, and, is that _blood_?

They head back into Altea in silence.

* * *

“ _What!_ ”

Allura gives them all a stern lecture, the next morning, though she seems a mix of worried about them and interested in their information. “Don’t leave without at least telling someone!” She crosses her arms, but her voice is soft. No matter how maturely she acts, Allura is still young. “You could’ve been hurt.”

“But now we have more information on quintessence.” Coran looks thoughtful. “We just need to figure out how to use this information.”

“It’s like they’re changing one form of magic for another!” Pidge exclaims. She writes something down quickly, muttering something to herself.

“That’s an interesting theory,” Shiro agrees. “Maybe the Galra is a group of people who don’t have elemental magic of their own.”

“What, and this is some stupid revenge scheme?” Lance is frowning. He’s still shaken from what had happened, Keith thinks. Hunk said that they’d run into someone with dark purple magic, and because Lance has the stronger quintessence between the two, the Galra wielded quintessence to control Lance.

Keith’s heart had skipped when Hunk had reached this part of the story.

Lance had attacked Hunk, apparently. He’d been entirely aware of his actions and unable to stop them as he formed sharp ice shards and hurled them at his best friend. Hunk had been forced to defend himself, hurtling rocks and dirt but trying not to hurt Lance. Lance’s eyes showed his pain, Hunk said, but his actions did not.

Keith can’t stop staring at Lance. It’s only been a night, and he doesn’t expect Lance to be back to normal, but Lance is acting like nothing happened. He’s smiling and smirking at the right times, and he interjected into Hunk’s story at all the right times (like he would have normally). But he’s also not making eye contact with anyone, and he’s not talking as much.

Keith wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what.

He isn’t close enough to Lance. It’s probably Hunk’s or Shiro’s job to talk to him.

Lance catches Keith’s look and glares. “What?”

The pen in Pidge’s hand explodes, ink coating her hand and her notes. Everyone jolts at the sound. “Really, guys?” She glares at both of them. “This is why we can’t have nice things.”

“Yeah, _Keith_.” Lance’s tone is harsh, and Keith would normally jump at this chance to argue, if he weren’t so concerned.

“Guys,” Shiro starts. He places a hand on Keith’s shoulder. Keith lets out a breath.

Lance scoffs and exits the tent.

* * *

Hunk is more than happy to give Keith the chance to be useful. Shiro, Allura, and Coran are all talking devising plans to do something with their new quintessence knowledge. Lance is doing something (and though Keith wants to know, he also knows when a person needs alone time, and he doesn’t want to bother Lance even though he does). Pidge is in the tent with them, fixing up her quintessence-tracking device.

“Pidge comes up with all these crazy ideas,” Hunk says, fiddling with some invention Keith can’t even hope to understand, “but I end up with all the repair jobs.”

“Hey!” Pidge calls, fake-offended.

“Hey! None of my inventions need you!” Hunk laughs, though, so Keith knows they’re joking.

Keith is standing to the side of the tent, arms crossed as he watches Hunk twist some screws and use his element to reshape different metals. Hunk is sitting at a table covered in various gears and springs and metals. The sound of metals clinking isn’t pleasant, but Hunk’s voice is loud and his tone is bright and it’s enough that Keith enjoys spending time here.

“What are you working on?” he asks, after they are both silent for several minutes.

“I got the idea for this after your show with Lance, actually.” Hunk looks up from his work to smile at Keith, and Keith feels warm. “Here, can you light a fire near this?” The device is flat and paneled, connected to what looks like glass and coils, several gears, metal plating.

Keith uncrosses his arms and leans in, unsure. “Light it on fire?”

“No, no!” Hunk shakes his head. “Like how you make the lights in your shows. I need to test something.”

Keith lets out a breath, focusing on his hands so the fire he releases is calmer, more in control. A bright glow surrounds them, lighting the tent as though it is a small sun.

The object in Hunk’s hands doesn’t do anything. Slowly Keith lets the light fade. “Nothing happened.”

Hunk laughs. “It’s absorbing the light as power.” The device lights up as though listening to Hunk’s words. Wow. “Hopefully this is less likely to shatter when you and Lance practice together.”

“Uhh. . .” Keith blushes, crossing his arms again. “Sorry?”

“Nah, everyone’s used to it now!” Pidge shouts from across the tent. “You guys practice a lot!”

Hunk laughs. “Pretty much. It’s harmless, though. It explains a lot of the weird weather we have when you’re performing.”

“We change the weather?” Keith is genuinely surprised.

“You did it literally the first day I met you!” Hunk places the device on the table and looks Keith in the eyes. “Remember? The rain?”

Keith does remember, but he never thought the rain was because he and Lance had argued. It doesn’t seem real. “Is that. . . normal?” Keith tries the word on his tongue. Nothing they do at Altea is really _normal_ . They’re all elemental magic wielders, so they can never really be _normal_. “Do you know anyone else who. . .”

“No,” Hunk admits sheepishly. “It’s a you-and-Lance thing. But I know the feeling of things being that magical.” Pidge makes a gagging noise from her spot. Hunk sticks out his tongue at her, though she’s far enough that she probably doesn’t see it.

Keith raises his eyebrows, hoping his curiosity is obvious so Hunk tells his story. Hunk, thankfully, reads Keith with ease.

“Before we joined Altea, Lance and I lived in cities near each other. It was us, Lance’s older siblings, a few friends from school, and Shay. There were probably more elementals in the area, but we were the ones who knew about each other and we used to practice together.

“Lance and his siblings were all water or air elementals; the rest of us were earth elementals”—Keith is about to ask about fire, but Hunk shakes his head—“We practiced at a park at night a few times a week. Shay was a master of the actual earth, the way that Pidge and I have mastered metals. So we had a lot to learn from each other.

“When Lance, Shay, and I practiced together, it was magical. Not in the let’s-change-the-weather or the destroy-all-of-Hunk’s-and-Pidge’s-cool-gadgets kind of way”—Pidge snickers again, and Keith can’t help his small smile—“but in the way that makes you feel warm and full of magic and like nothing can hurt you.”

Keith swallows, thinks of his performances with Lance. The freedom of his element that he’s never before felt. _I know the feeling_.

“It feels like home.”

Keith thinks Hunk’s story is over, then, but he watches as a dark look crosses Hunk’s face, as his lips draw into a frown.

“But then Shay and the kids from school started acting weird, and Lance’s siblings stopped coming. They wanted him to stop coming, too, but he wouldn’t leave when other people might need him. Shay wasn’t herself, the way our crowds have been lately, and then one day the apartments nearby had been burned down, and everyone was just. Gone.”

— _Burn it. Burn it. Burn it._

 _He burns it like the orphanage, burns it like the apartments they stayed in before, burns it because he has no control over his element, not when they’re drowning him like this_ —

Keith doesn’t say anything.

“I’m terrified of what this guy can _do_ . He can control people, and he does it in the worst way possible. He basically _tortured_ my best friend, and he took Shay. I couldn’t do anything about it. Either time.” His hands are clenched into fists, his voice cracking when he speaks.

“When quintessence is involved, I don’t think there’s anything that _anyone_ can do,” Keith mumbles. He doesn’t know how to be comforting. He isn’t good at this. He can’t help.

“Maybe,” Hunk agrees.

They’re quiet for another few minutes, the only sounds of Pidge’s tinkering.

“But we’re going to find her.” Keith says, looking into Hunk’s eyes. “You can feel that magic again. We’re going to take everything back.” It sounds stupid when he says it (he isn’t meant to be optimistic, he doesn’t know how to comfort), and he hears Pidge snort at his words, but Hunk seemingly appreciates the gesture all the same.

“Dude.” Hunk engulfs Keith in a warm hug. “Thanks,” he adds softly.

Guilt churns in his stomach. Hunk is so kind, and Keith doesn’t know why he isn’t willing to share his story when Altea is so open to sharing theirs.

“I just. I ran away when I came here.” He forces himself to admit this much, offering Hunk a half-smile. “It’s nothing great like that.”

“It doesn’t matter why you’re here, as long as it’s what you want.” He definitely wants to be here. “We got you.”

“Thanks,” Keith echoes.

* * *

Keith hopes it isn’t obvious in the way he stares (though it’s obvious to everyone else, apparently), but the more time he spends with Lance, practicing, performing, talking, the more he feels himself feeling happy.

Sometimes he finds himself smiling.

He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t feel this way. Normally.

But with Lance, he kind of does.

He catches up to Lance as he’s leaving his tent after another enchanting show. He doesn’t really know what he wants to say, but Lance’s expression softens when he sees Keith, and it makes Keith feel like the fire burning inside him is a calm, warm presence instead of something uncomfortable.

Lance has been acting like nothing has changed, and Keith wants to talk to him about it, but he doesn’t want to upset Lance if he really has moved past the event.

It’s just. . . He misses the carefree Lance that smiles more and laughs more. Lance is frustrating sometimes, sure, but he’s the first person Keith can be angry at, without being _truly_ angry. He’s so used to being infuriated and scared and pained because of his home situation, but at Altea, he can just. . . feel, how he wants to.

He wants Lance back.

“Nice job today?” He hates himself for making it sound like a question rather than the statement that it is.

Lance chuckles, leading them away from the darkened tent that houses Lance the Enchanter’s gift. The bright sunlight initially makes them pause and squint, and then they start heading down the path toward the tent where they sleep. “You mean nice job _every_ day, Keith.”

Keith nods, and Lance looks so surprised he looks away.

 _Just say something_ . Keith scrambles to think of a conversation starter. _You idiot, you should have planned for this_.

Lance would’ve started a conversation between them, before.

They’re both quiet as they walk, and then they hear footsteps bounding to catch up to them. For a second Keith thinks something has broken again.

“Lance!”

The voice is unfamiliar, and they both turn.

“I saw your show,” a boy says, the brightest of smiles on his lips. He has dark hair and light eyes and he’s entirely focused on Lance. He’s a little shorter than Lance, though he looks older in his dark suit. He’s attractive. Keith feels awkward standing there. “You were amazing!”

Lance beams, turning away from Keith and focusing on his admirer. His face is flushed, his eyes shining. He looks like he’s the old Lance again. “Oh?”

“Yes!”

Lance slips into an easygoing persona so quickly, and Keith forces himself to tear his eyes away from Lance’s face. Lance waves his hand, pulling water from the air around them, freezing it into a delicate rose. The light makes the rose shimmer beautifully, and the boy’s excited gasp as Lance hands the rose to him makes Keith nauseous.

Every time he thinks he understands Lance, he does something new and amazing and leaves Keith confused all over again.

“You flatter me.” Lance’s smile makes something both unpleasant and wonderful churn in Keith’s stomach. Lance never smiles at him like that. “Not a lot of people look at the enchanter when the water magic’s happening.”

Keith swallows, unsure of why he’s suddenly not feeling well. He kind of wants to punch something. He should practice his fire magic. He turns away from Lance and his admirer, tunes out their voices.

Lance is a flirt, he’s easygoing, Keith knows, but it’s never truly bothered him before. _You can’t have a boyfriend and focus on Altea, you’ll get distracted_ , he wants to say. But it’s stupid to say that. Lance could do both. Lance can do anything.

He can hear the sizzling of the ground underneath his feet, can smell the smoke, and he rushes away before things escalate.

He’s been letting Lance get too close, if something so small bothers him like this.

(But is letting people get close really a bad thing?)

* * *

The matron of the orphanage yanks the boy from the room by his sleeve, and he stumbles as he tries to keep up with her, little footsteps thudding as he jogs. He’s long given up hope on getting adopted (he’s the devil’s child, the devil’s child, _the devil’s child_ ), but his heart skips a beat, eager, wondering, wanting. He’s too old now, eight years too far in the system. He knows too much and too little, has a skill no one wants. She pushes him into an office, nods at the man in the room, then leaves and shuts the door behind her.

He wants to say something to the man, but the man’s presence is more than overwhelming. His shoulders are wide, and he is wearing a long, dark cloak. He is tall, bulky with muscle, and his presence fills the room so much that for a moment, words cannot form on the boy’s lips.

“What can you do?” the man asks, and his eyes seem to glow.

The boy debates an answer—no one has taught him to read, yet, and he isn’t very good at talking to people, but he can learn quickly—but before he can voice anything, the man pulls a sword from his side, slices it at the boys face. The strike _burns_.

Startled, the boy sends a blast of fire from his fists. It lights the man’s cloak aflame, but the man blinks his glowing eyes and then Keith waves his hand and the fire is out.

“I—”

“Come with me,” the man decides, and the sword is gone. “I can train you.”

The boy is at a loss for words. He doesn’t know if he has a choice in the matter, and instinct screams at him that he shouldn’t. He starts to take a step backward, but he makes eye contact with the man, and suddenly the air is hard to breathe and his mind is fuzzy.

That gaze makes him move forward, mechanical steps that he doesn’t fully realize that he is taking. He touches his cheek, flinching at the sting, at the blood on his fingertips.

“Who are you?” he demands, and his desire to stop moving toward this man causes the floor to sizzle. The smell of burning, the sight of smoke, the sudden smirk on the man’s lips makes him freeze.

“You,” the man glances downward. He says something, and it sounds like a name but it doesn’t at the same time. “You are now—” He makes that sound again. The boy reshapes the name in his head, decides he’ll use a variation as his name, since he doesn’t have a real one anyway.

“That’s not my na—” His mouth shuts without his will, and they both leave the room together, legs moving stiffly and out of his control. There is no longer any smoke in the room, no trace of either of them having been there. The man motions to the matron, who glances at the cut on the boy’s cheek, the blood sticking to his face, and looks away.

 _The devil’s child_.

“I will house you, teach you to control your elemental abilities,” the man says. The matron doesn’t appear to hear anything. No other children from the orphanage watch as the pair interacts. The words are just for him.

 _I don’t want to go with you_.

“You will be useful.”

* * *

Keith sighs and flops back onto Shiro’s bed. He’s tired from practicing (from running away from Lance and that _boy_ , from remembering his last day at the orphanage), but he doesn’t feel like going back to his own tent, where someone will inevitably mention Lance and make Keith’s veins feel like they’re on fire.

The nonelementals in this tent pay him no mind, and Keith can feel Shiro’s gaze on him, questioning.

“How’re you holding up?” Shiro asks, a knowing smile on his lips. He’s sitting at a small desk, notes and papers scattered about. Shiro doesn’t have his own performances, though he used to do shows that showcased his strength, lifting objects and animals and people, making the crowd excited at simple human strength and nothing particularly magical (yet magical all the same). He helps Altea from the background now, working on the logistics behind a traveling circus, the advertisements, the planning of locations. He seems tired most of the time, but he always makes time for Keith.

Shiro doesn’t talk about himself a lot. Keith hates that Shiro is always willing to help him and everyone else, but he isn’t willing to let anyone help him.

Keith doesn’t know how to help, but he wants to help.

“How are _you_?” Keith sits up on the bed, staring at Shiro.

“Fine.” Shiro’s smile falls, but his tone is proud and his eyes are bright. “Altea has been good for you, Keith. I’m glad.”

Keith flushes pink but refuses to be swayed. “Don’t change the subject.”

Shiro looks surprised, then laughs. “I _am_ fine. Didn’t you come in here to talk about—”

“I just. You seem distant, lately.”

“I don’t know,” Shiro says, finally. “It’s not anything for any of you to worry about.”

“Shiro. . .” Keith is determined. “You always talk to me. Let me—”

“It’s not a big deal.” Shiro looks around, makes sure no one else is listening to them. He seems to be debating something.

Every time he goes to Shiro’s tent, Shiro always opens the conversation, so Keith can have the opportunity to open up if he wants. But their conversations always seem so one-sided. “I just want you to know you can talk to me. Like I can talk to you.” The words feel awkward on his lips but he wants Shiro to know that. He wants everyone at Altea to know that.

Shiro nods. “I am fine, Keith.”

Keith tries a different approach. “Why did you join Altea?”

He cringes at how forward the question is. No transition to the conversation, no warning that he was going to ask. He needs more conversation practice.

Shiro smiles at Keith’s attempt, though, and he nods. “Allura was performing. She was a trapeze artist, and she used air magic to let these colored ribbons flutter around her when she moved. There was this one part of her show where she swung from one bar to another. . .” Shiro seems like he isn’t there, lost in memories. Keith knows the feeling too well. “I just, _woke up_. I didn’t know why I was there, but I knew I had to be there.”

“That’s,” Keith pauses, unsure of what word he wants to use. “Heavy.”

It’s not just heavy, it’s horrifying. In some way, Keith is glad to know that people can have their quintessence stolen from them and still end up okay, but they lose everything. Shiro has no memory of his life before Altea. He might have been an elemental before this, for all they know.

“I don’t know what my past is, but I know my future.” Shiro shrugs a little helplessly, a small smile directed at Keith. “The same goes for you. Whatever your past was, your future is here, with us in Altea.”

Keith smiles.

“Altea has been good for you,” Shiro repeats, and his smile is wide genuine despite the tiredness in his eyes. “I’m glad you’ve gotten closer to everyone.”

* * *

Talking to Shiro helps Keith reign in his emotions.

He doesn’t know how long he is in Shiro’s tent, but he’s sure it’s enough time that Lance is done talking to the stranger. They’re going to be in this city for another day, Keith thinks (somewhat bitterly), so that boy can come back tomorrow for Lance’s show. He leaves Shiro’s tent motivated to find and talk to Lance, and he’s determined to do it.

Lance, of course, makes himself scarce now that Keith is trying to find him. He isn’t in their shared tent, isn’t with Hunk or with Pidge. Hunk laughs and encourages Keith to find Lance when he realizes what Keith is doing, though Pidge just laughs. Lance is practicing alone in the training tent when Keith finally locates him.

“Lance!” he calls, a little breathlessly.

The water whirling around Lance halts and splashes to the ground at Keith’s voice. The water is loud, and the air is cool.

“If it isn’t everyone’s favorite fire boy.” Lance pulls the water back up from the ground, letting it rush around them both now that Keith has entered the tent.

“Oh, uhh.” Keith stumbles over his words, all his determination gone when he sees the bright blue of Lance’s eyes. “How was your new fan?” He did _not_ want to ask that question. At all.

Lance seems surprised at the question, and his expression quickly morphs into a more prideful one, a smirk teasing his lips. Keith wants to melt. “Why? Jealous?”

 _Yes_.

“No!”

Lance looks unconvinced, and Keith feels his face grow warm.

“I,” he tries to focus on the sound of water around them. It’s calming, normally, but now it just serves to remind him how fast his heart is beating. Can Lance see how nervous he is? He wishes he had Lance’s ability to be so good with people. “I wanted to talk to you. See how you’re doing?”

Lance is quiet for a minute, and then he starts laughing. The water stops moving just so he can laugh (and it makes Keith stupidly weak at the knees, he hates this and loves this), and then the water is moving again. “So who forced you to ask me that? Shiro?”

“No. . .”

“Hunk?”

“No!”

“Coran?”

“Is it hard to believe that _I_ want to see you’re okay?” Keith hadn’t realized how loud his voice has gotten. Lance stops manipulating the water, lets it pause, a curtain of water around them. His face feels warm. “I just. . . you. . . you haven’t been yourself lately.”

Lance stares at him. There’s a slight disbelief in his face that quickly becomes a condescending smirk. “Yeah? How would _you_ know?”

Keith could list everything he’s noticed. The way Lance is the first to leave groups, the lapses in conversation, the distant look in his eyes. He’s been so distant. “I just do,” he says instead, crossing his arms.

“Of course you do.”

“What?”

“You know what, I’ll bite.” Lance crosses his arms, and the water conglomerates into solid shapes, freezing into ice crystals that float around them. Even in this state, Lance’s elemental abilities are amazing, and Keith has to tear his eyes from this to stare at Lance. “There’s no reason for me to even be at Altea, and then I almost kill Hunk, who actually contributes. Is that what you _knew_ , pyro?”

No. Keith’s mouth feels dry. “What do you mean ‘no reason to be here?’”

“I don’t have the same motivations as everyone to be here, you know?” Several ice crystals crash downward. “I left my family behind for this, and it’s not even like I contribute that much!”

“What are you talking about?” He can’t keep the disbelief from his voice. Lance is vital to Altea, he doesn’t need to be searching for something or running from someone to help. His performances are probably the biggest reason people aren’t losing themselves (that _Keith_ doesn’t lose _him_ self). And when they perform together, Lance’s contributions amplify.

Thinking about this makes Keith’s own fire burn. It’s nowhere near as pretty as Lance’s ice, the flames that grow and wrap around him, licks of light and warmth. It clashes with the ice that Lance has created, melting some of it and creating steam around them. _You’re amazing, Lance_.

“I don’t even know why I have my own show,” Lance mumbles. “I barely raise morale, let alone elemental energy or whatever.”

 _What_? “Lance. . .”

“It took _months_ for me to get my first show. And there was never any quintessence-improvement or whatever.” Lance’s ice grows stronger, the air around them colder. “I’m just some stupid accessory for _your_ element.” The sudden harshness of Lance’s gaze freezes Keith’s words in his throat. _What_?

The cold look in Lance’s eyes fades as quickly as it came, and Keith’s mind is scrambling to figure out what to say or do.

“We have a show together because we work well together,” Keith says, unsure of where the conversation is leading. They don’t always work well together, sure, but when they get along, everything feels magical and warm inside.

The fire around Keith dies a little, but the smell of smoke remains, and the ground under his feet is still subject to his flares.

Lance, so good at reading people, sees Keith’s confusion. All harshness in his face disappears quickly. “Never mind. Sorry I brought this up.”

“But—”

“I was easily manipulated. I could have _killed_ Hunk.”

“That was—”

“So I just, I need to practice more. I will. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Wait—”

Lance is walking past him. Keith feels like he messed up, somewhere.


End file.
